Hart's Books

Author Talk – Rupert Wieloch – Russia and the West

Wednesday 16th May at 6:30pm

Tickets £5.00, available over the phone on 01799 524 552 or in-store.

Join us for an evening with former Senior British Military Commander Rupert Wieloch.

In 2018, the relationship between Russia and the West has returned to what many commentators describe as the Second Cold War. This has led people to ask whether permanent peace between the Great Powers is achievable in the modern era.

In his talk on 16th May, Rupert Wieloch will discuss how British accords with Russia changed after Vladimir Putin came to power. He will trace diplomatic and military tensions to the Russian Civil War and the incredible story of fifteen soldiers abandoned in the middle of the Siberian winter by the British Army. After they saved the lives of thousands of refugees, they made a mad dash for freedom by train and sleigh, but were captured and imprisoned in a converted Moscow monastery. Using secret Cabinet Office documents that have only recently been released, he explains how the British soldiers survived against the overwhelming odds of typhus, torture and temperatures below 40 degrees centigrade and how their plight affected the decisions of Lloyd George, Lord Curzon and Winston Churchill.

The author was the Senior British Military commander in Libya at the time of the civil war and is now a regular contributor to the BBC and Sky News. He will be available to sign copies of his book Belfast to Benghazi after the talk.